The Difference Between Google and Facebook
Watching the three hour long Google I/O keynote today, I noticed a reoccurring trend throughout most of the presentation. What was that trend you ask? Two words: “Launching today.” Those two words make all the difference.
Launching today means a few things: it means my interest in the product is kept, it means I don’t have to wonder when it will roll out, and it means I’ll continue talking about the product for the next few days (at the very least). And that’s why I love that Google launched most of its announcements today or at the very least provided a hard release date (such is the case for Galaxy S4 running stock Android). In fact, I think the only product announced that didn’t receive an official release date was the new Google Maps, but even that is available to preview right now (for some people).
Both Google’s All Access Music and new Google+ features launched today, meanwhile I’m still waiting to get my hands on the new Facebook News Feed design which was announced back in March. But perhaps even worse, I’m still waiting for Graph Search which was announced back in January. I mean seriously Facebook, you practically lost my interest in both products by now.
What’s taking so long?
I understand Facebook wants to work out all the kinks prior to launching the products, but then maybe they should wait to announce them. It’s been five months since Graph Search was announced and I still don’t have it. Surely Facebook can get a product to scale and be available to all of its users within a five month timeframe — I just don’t get what is taking so long. And Facebook doesn’t provide any solid time frames to when a roll out will be completed, so at this rate I don’t know if I’ll ever get either feature.
Facebook talks a big game about building the best products, but the fact of the matter is, most of its users aren’t using its latest and what I’m sure Facebook considers its best products. Meanwhile on the Google side of things, Google users get access to Google’s best products right away — without having to wait an eternity. And that’s the difference between Google and Facebook right now.